Both Kim Campbell (in 1991) and Jean Chrétien (in 1995) justified bringing in additional restrictions on guns in part because Gharbi bought his gun legally before murdering helpless students at Montréal’s École Polytechnique in 1989.

The government’s emotional posturing resulted in a complex gun control scheme that imposes owner licensing (the Possession and Acquisition Licence) and required rifles and shotguns to be registered. Long-gun registration was repealed in 2012, but owner licensing continues. More than three billion dollars has been spent to date on this complex yet ineffective system. Hundreds of civil servants are employed at Miramichie — and in every province — as part of the Canadian Firearms Program. They decide who can own firearms and who cannot.

Two cases illustrate the failure of gun controls. Despite onerous restrictions on purchasing firearms, the new gun laws did not stop the crazy shooter at Dawson College in Montreal in 2006, nor the spree killer in Moncton in 2014.

Gun Owners Are Under Attack

Hunters and target shooters are endangered. The shooting sports are being strangled by increasingly arbitrary regulations. The police abuse licensing to treat law-abiding PAL holders in the same way as criminals. The new government has a long list of gun restrictions it wants to implement.